Tested Lessons: Basic Animatronics, Part 1
This week, we’re joined in the office by effects artist and CreatureGeek co-host Frank Ippolito to learn about mechanizing simple sculptures. Frank shares an animatronic puppet he built when he was first starting out, shows us the armature for the Zoidberg Project, and gets us started on a basic project. Follow along by signing up for a membership here!
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We got our skulls for this project from SkullShoppe: http://skullshoppe.com/ they’re really nice!
Awesome guys! I always appreciate the stuff Jamie pulls of with his regular RC transmitter, I forget it can be used for so much more. Looking forward to seeing what Frank does with it!
The Taranis needs an adapter to talk to Spektrum stuff.
BTW: stepper motors don’t know what position they are in, you just tell them to move so many “steps” in one direction or another. With servos you basically input a “number” that tells the servo exactly what position that you want it to move to.
As mentioned steppers can keep going round and round (there is no movement limit).
Normal servos move 180 degrees (though there are some special ones that move 360 degrees).
Looking forward to upcoming videos on aimatronics!
Franks monster looks so happy.
I’ve made this comment before, but can you guys replace the Rx and Tx with a microprocessor (arduino/raspi), then pump individual podcast audio tracks to make servos actuate based on sound levels?
You could use this for when you lose your video, and have your blockhead puppets on screen instead (without having to puppet them manually).
please let there be a grant imahara cameo!
or
what if i don’t want to use a remote, is there like a direct controller for servos that can be hooked up for in-suit control or something that caters to hobbyists. I would think it would be cheaper, any recommendations?
You can use a servo tester to control a servo w/o a radio. They can be built or bought. I’ve got one that I’ve been using for over 10 years.
Analog servos just have a gear that’s connected to a potentiometer. You send it a PWM signal and it goes to an angle.
You can turn servos into reversable DC motors by drilling out the spline that connects the output shaft to the potentiometer. Then just make a knotch in the potentiometer and adjust it so that stopped is someplace in the middle. It’s an easy way to make robot drive motors without needing to have any additional electronics.
Servor City has a good selection of servos and couplings (main reason I’ve bought from them in the past): https://www.servocity.com/index.html
Cannot wait for the rest!
Cannot wait for the rest!
Why so servoious? That sounds far more complicated than it needs to be IMHO.
This couldn’t come at a better time! I’m finally ready to move out from sculpture and mold making into Animatronics, and I have like four extra skull shoppe skulls laying around!
Awesome!
Great seeing this stuff. I got to upgrade an RC swan for Seattle Opera’s Loehngrin, originally built in 1994, back in 2004. This brought all that fun back
Really excited for this.
Also interesting to see that the restart with Wills mike not being plugged in is still in the episode even with the retake following it. Was that a concious decision, ?
Animatronic Norm-head needs to happen 😀
If you don’t want to use an RC controller, but would still like remote control of the head, there’s something like this: https://www.tindie.com/products/peterson79/blue-rx-16ch-bluetooth-40-servo-controller/ or this: http://robokitsworld.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=347
are the download links gone for premium vids?
dupe
There’s definitely an extra take at around the 28 minute mark where Will’s mic wasn’t plugged in.
Come on guys, get a decent video player! I have not been able to play premium videos since you got this latest player, it’s a piece of shit!
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned, servos have 3 pins, they are – + s. On each of the outputs on the reciever, all of the positive pins are connected together and all of the – pins are connected together too. This means you can plug your battery into any socket you want.
The other cool thing is I f you want to plug an LED in or something else that runs at 6v, a fan or whatever, you can make up a cable and simply plug it into one of the spare sockets. You won’t have any control over it, but it’s an easy and neat way of getting power.
Great site for cheap servos and stuff: http://www.hobbyking.com
Thank you! Exactly the info I needed.